Book: David Brooks the president’s ‘favorite pundit’

Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks has an admirer in the White House, according to a new book.

In “The Obamas,” New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor reports that after the Democrats’ midterm election defeat in 2010, President Obama personally contacted White House outsiders to get a candid take on what he may be missing cloistered in the bubble of the Oval Office.

Among those the president reached out to, she said, were former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, President Clinton confidante Vernon Jordan, former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein and David Gergen, a CNN analyst and adviser to several presidents.

He also reached out to Brooks, who Kantor wrote is “the president’s favorite pundit.”

“My only response is that I hope it’s true but I’m not sure it is,” Brooks told TheDC in an email when asked for comment.

Some on the right have criticized Brooks, who has suggested in the past that Obama views his outlook as “Burkean,” for being too laudatory of the president. The New Republic even characterized their relationship a “bromance.”

“I remember distinctly an image of — we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant,” Brooks said, recounting to the magazine a meeting he had with Obama when he was still a senator, “and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.”

But if there ever was a love affair, it seems to have ended. Brooks recently told conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham that he misjudged Obama’s politics.

“I still like him — admire him personally,” Brooks told her. “He’s certainly more liberal than I thought he was.”

Last July, TheDC sat down for an extensive interview with Brooks during which he discussed, among other things, his relationship with President Obama.

Watch: Brooks pushes back against the notion of a “bromance” with Obama